


Cursed Clock

by MWolfe13



Category: Doctor Who, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cursed objects, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23623378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MWolfe13/pseuds/MWolfe13
Summary: When a not-so-routine assignment goes wrong.
Relationships: Terence Higgs & Amy Pond
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Quest for the Ring to Rule Them All





	Cursed Clock

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Quest for the One Ring Oneshot Elimination Challenge on Draco's Den.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Doctor Who

Terence ran a hand through his spikey blond hair, observing the locked blue police box in front of him.

Did Muggles use these things anymore? Why would the object he was after be in one of these?

Terence Higgs worked for the Ministry of Magic, in the Misuse of Magical Artifacts office. The department had been the laughing stock of their country at one point, before the war ended. Now, with the entire government gutted and the corruption rooted out, for the most part, the office was seeing more time than normal.

And not in a good way.

The object he had in his notes was a cursed clock. The report stated it spewed Feindfyre when the alarm went off, little tears of dark fire that spread with each drop. The dark spell was hard to control, so the small discharge was either all the caster could manage when cursing the clock or it was intentional. Either way, the list of suspects capable was long. That wasn’t on Terence’s list of duties though. He left that to the Auror’s. His job was to retrieve the object, dispelled or contained.

The first sighting had come from the burnt remains of an older Muggle house. The lady who’d called the rundown place her home had miraculously survived, leaving the house instead of trying to put out the flames. It’d been a smart move on her part, she’d have been dead otherwise seeing as it hadn’t been a normal fire. They’d dispatched Auror’s at the first report of an unstoppable blaze, but the clock hadn’t been seen when they were finally able to comb the area. That wasn’t how these cases normally went, and Terrence had been too intrigued by the mystery to turn down the chance to find it.

He’d used an old family spell to pinpoint the likely location of the dark artifact. That was exactly what it was now, cursed as it was. The magic had led him here, to this locked blue booth. How had it ended up here? Had one of the police officers at the original scene taken it when it’d stopped spewing fire? What reason would they need to? Terrence would be the first to admit that he had very little working knowledge of what Muggle’s thought about, and how they behaved. He’d hardly encountered any in his previous years of life. 

Well, it was no matter. He’d contain the clock and leave. He wasn’t sure he was powerful enough to dispel the curse, so he’d take it straight to the DMLE. 

Glancing around to make sure he wasn’t attracting attention, Terence discreetly pulled out his wand and waved it over the handle of the booth. It clicked, the universal noise of a lock breaking open. He kept his wand out, easing the door slowly in the event he needed to contain the clock fast.

This was not a normal police box.

Wires and gadgets filled an impossibly large room. The inside was round in shape, nothing like the rectangular booth it projected outside. There was a station in the middle, buttons and knobs galore scattered around it. And right there on top, sitting harmlessly for the moment, was the clock. It was just as the lady had described; medium-sized, red, and round. There were two bells at the top. The Feindfyre spewed from those metal ringers when the clock’s alarm went off. 

Terence walked straight to it, his instincts telling him to hurry. This place was no Muggle invention. Yet, with all the clear machinery, it couldn’t be wholly magical either. He lifted his wand, ready to cast the necessary spell and get out of here.

“Who are you?”

He spun around, wand clattering the ground as the unfamiliar voice surprised him. The woman who’d spoken was looking at him with a frown, red hair flowing down her shoulders, green eyes filled with suspicion. Terrence didn’t think going for his wand was a good idea. She didn’t look like anyone he knew, but he only knew of one magical family in Britain that she probably belonged to. “Weasley?” he tried.

Her frown turned into a scowl. “No, Amy Pond. I won’t repeat myself again. Who are you?”

He knew of no Pond family. Merlin, she was a Muggleborn. That was alright. It certainly didn’t explain the impossibility of this room but at least he wasn’t dealing with a Muggle. “Miss Pond-”

Before Terence could explain the situation and reassure her of his role at the Ministry, the clock let out a loud, shrilling, scream. Terence turned around in dismay, summoning his wand on instinct. The clock was shaking, teardrops of fire starting to jump from the silver bells. They caught on the loose wires of the station it was on, the console sparking as it caught ablaze.

For the love of Salazar, he was too late.

Amy made a noise of distress, rushing past him to get to the source of the growing fire. Terence pulled her back before she could get to close, closing his arms around her, even as she kicked out at him. “Let me go!”

“Are you mad?” Terence pulled her struggling form to the entrance. “That’s Feindfyre. You won’t be able to put it out before it catches you.”

“No! You don’t understand.”

“I understand plenty,” Terence said with a small amount of sympathy as they stumbled out of the now smoking booth. “I understand you might feel sentimental value to whatever it is you built, but the dark magic will eat you before you can douse it. I need to call the Auror’s here. They’re the only ones who can deal with this now.” Hopefully, the blasted clock wouldn’t disappear again. The thing was becoming more trouble than it was worth based on his meager paycheck.

“Dark magic?” Amy questioned. “What’s Feindfyre?”

Terence slowly let go of her, taking his eyes from the doomed police box to focus on her. “Weren’t you paying attention during DADA? Or did you not go to Hogwarts?”

If anything, the recognition he expected to see didn’t come. Instead, she slowly grew more confused. “Hogwarts? Is that a place?” Her eyes closed briefly as a window blew, the sound like a blast. “The Doctor will not be happy about this.”

Terence didn’t pay attention to her words, his mind slowly piecing together her previous words with her blatant confusion. Oh no, this woman was actually a Muggle and he’d just broken the Statute by mistake. This wasn’t good. He was definitely going to be reprimanded for this. 


End file.
